


I sincerely tried to love it

by sandyk



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: F/M, post ep for 312, this is the happier post ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 21:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13578939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: But, Amy thought, spitting on the ground, she couldn't actually do that. She was stuck with everything that had happened. Even this moment right now when she had to clean up her damn driveway. She went to get the hose.





	I sincerely tried to love it

**Author's Note:**

> not mine, no profit garnered. title from the national's demons. for the trope bingo square time travel.

While she was throwing up in her driveway, Amy thought about time travel. She wanted to time travel. She would go back and she would, she would do something. She decided to go back to the night she and Jonah were in the storm shelter and when Kelly comes in, Amy says, "Actually, Jonah and I were having kinda a private talk. Sorry."

Jonah backs her up because he always does but he looks at her and says, "That seems a little rude. Were we having a private talk?"

"We should be," Amy says. She looks around the storm shelter and she knows this is the moment to make most things right. She says, "We should be. You kissed me. I mean, I kissed you. It made everything awkward because I kissed you. Like, you and I had that talk at the wedding and even then, even before, we were, I felt guilty. It was like an emotional affair. It pretty much was an emotional affair. So I cheated, you know? And I kissed you and I wonder if I hadn't, if we hadn't been us, then maybe Adam and I could have made it worked. Maybe I didn't try hard enough because of you."

"I don't think that's true," Jonah says. "I think you had problems before you were emotionally cheating with me. I don't think you were, though."

"Please," Amy says. "We were cheating in our hearts. I certainly was. And you didn't stop me. Which is fine. Not your job. Also, Kelly has a crush on you and I don't want you to date her."

"That's two separate issues," Jonah says.

"I think," Amy says. "I think me not bringing this up before, all of this guilt I feel, it's why I keep feeling like I'm not ready to do anything, to date. I feel responsible. Not because of you, but because of me and my relationship to you."

"Maybe it's just that you're getting divorced after spending close to half your life with Adam," Jonah says.

But, she thought, spitting on the ground, she couldn't actually do that. She was stuck with everything that had happened. Even this moment right now when she had to clean up her damn driveway. She went to get the hose.

Her day was shitty and she didn't have any kind of conversation with Jonah. His announcements with Kelly were increasingly irritating. She didn't say anything, though. Also, oddly, Sandra was now Acting Assistant Manager and she seemed to be doing a great job.

When she got home, Emma was looking at her with heartbroken eyes. Emma, apparently, always skimmed Youtube for videos at Cloud 9 Ozark Highlands so she could keep up with the store stuff and find things to make her mom feel guilty. But someone had filmed the whole Tate, Amy, Marcus, Cheyenne, etc, confrontation. It was very nearly some of the worst few hours of Amy's life.

The next day she decided to it was time to stop. Stop all of it. No more overreacting or CrAmy or any of it. Now was the time of Amy, full grown adult. She felt that way sometimes. Sometimes she felt 19, sometimes she felt 50. It was always one of the other.

She went straight to Dina who was thankfully standing upright. Amy said, "I'm going to show you this video, you're going to laugh, and then because you're my best friend, you're going to find the chick who uploaded it and make her take it down forever. Because you're my best friend, right?"

"First I need to see the video," Dina said. She laughed, a lot. She said, "Tate, huh? That's a catch. Do you know how much money he makes? Was he any good?"

"I was pretty drunk. I wanted to do it, but you know, missionary position, average dick, I guess average, I mean, and I didn't really come," Amy said. "Emma saw this video."

Dina frowned. "Oh, no, that won't do. Can I kill this woman who uploaded it?"

"You shouldn't," Amy said. "You really shouldn't, not wink wink you shouldn't. But threats of violence? You're amazing at that stuff. I trust you. You're my best friend."

"That I am," Dina said "Sorry I missed all this." Dina took Amy's phone. "I'm going to need to watch that one last time before I get it taken down." Then she handed Amy her phone back. "Okay, this is going to be done by 5pm."

Amy nodded.

Her next stop was Jonah. She found him in grocery, she pulled him away to talk privately. She said, "Jonah, I need to talk to you."

"Okay," Jonah said, his gaze on his sneakers.

She tried to give him the speech, the one from her time travel trip. It was a shitty speech and she screwed it up a few times. He said, "Okay, okay. Thanks for letting me know. I don't know what to do with that. I have a girlfriend." He frowned after that. 

"You sure do," Amy said.

"I need to think about something else," Jonah said and walked away.

But Amy felt good, not quite good, but she felt more together than she had in months. Two hours after she talked to Jonah, she hadn't seen him. Garrett rolled up to her and said, "Man, you spun Jonah right around between actually having sex and today's little conversation."

"I can't believe you actually care about Jonah, you don't act like it," Amy said.

Garrett said, "I didn't realize I was moving in with a jittery little freak who was flipping out. Well, he was until he started dating Kelly. She's been good for him even if you hate her."

"I don't hate her," Amy said. "Jonah doesn't love her."

"Sure, of course, he doesn't. But I get you're angry and lashing out," Garrett said.

"I'm not angry," Amy said. "I'm disappointed with you. You used to be a good guy under all the cool guy act."

"It's not an act, we all know I'm cool," Garrett said. "Suddenly you're defending Jonah?"

"Whatever," Amy said. She sighed. "Whatever, Garrett, you do what you want." She walked away. 

She heard Garrett calling to her back, "Hey. Stop that. I feel no shame. Nothing. I feel nothing."

Amy just put her head down and worked. Dina found her and gave her a thumbs up. "And you won't end up in jail?"

Dina smiled. "That's so sweet, you care. Of course, you do. And don't worry. Plus, I'm pretty sure if I ended up in jail, Glenn would get Jerusha to confess to it so I could have this baby on the outside."

"Are you definitely pregnant?"

"Probably, it's only been a few days. I have no idea. I assume, though, because I have a great uterus. The doc even said so, great uterus, perfect for baby having," Dina said. "Did they say that about yours back in the day?"

"There was no comment at all about my uterus," Amy said. Dina was a great best friend but she was still very Dina. "I peed on a stick, I went to the ob, after that everyone was really focused on the baby."

"I guess I should get used to that. Being a vessel. A vessel for a Sturgis child." Dina shuddered.

She didn't see Jonah for the rest of her shift. When she got home, she told Emma that the video was down. "None of your friends will ever see it. Trust me."

"Thanks," Emma said. 

The next day Amy went to work with a slightly reduced amount of dread. She was still full of dread, but it was definitely less. She went in at one pm and was immediately grabbed on the arm, hard, by Dina. "Did you do this?"

"Do what?" Amy yanked her arm free.

Dina stood back and looked Amy up and down. "Okay, it's probably beyond you. The news is that this morning, Kelly comes in late and turns in her vest. Apparently she used to be married. And she's been separated all this time. They just hadn't made it legal, so I guess Jonah got in that adultery without even realizing it. We know this because her husband apparently showed up last night, convinced her to reconcile, and they're moving to Nebraska and she also dumped Jonah because, as she said straight to his face, they'd never really been in love. Now, Kelly knows what real love feels like. With her husband."

Amy said, "Didn't she feel it before for her husband? She only felt it the second time around? And how do you just get separated and then not follow up?"

"I don't know, who was asking questions? We were all just staring and wondering if Jonah would freak out and kill us all. He seemed really stressed," Dina said. "Understandable after you had sex with Tate."

"Whatever, I did nothing wrong. Ugh, Kelly was supposed to be - wait, where was she working?"

"Does it matter? She wasn't very good at her job," Dina said. "She seemed like a nice person."

"Okay," Amy said. "Where's Jonah?"

"He went home," Dina said. 

"Okay, I should get back to work, get to work," Amy said. She heard the Kelly story from six other people, including Cheyenne's version and that one had Kelly carrying a gun. 

She kept her head down again. Tate gave her his sad "human vibrator" look but he also yelled at a 75 year old man who wanted to purchase a box of kleenex along with his prescriptions. Mixed bag. 

When she went home, she was alone. Emma was with her dad and Amy had the whole place to herself. She looked at her succulents and her sudoku books. She flipped through Netflix and decided to rewatch One Day at a Time. Then she sat on the couch and opened her laptop. Amy stared at the blank spots on the wall. There were things she wanted. She was supposed to be less miserable after the divorce. She could be. 

She pushed her laptop aside and picked up her phone. She called Jonah. "Hey, just checking on you," she said.

Jonah said, "Why?"

"Because I care about you? Also I heard about seven different versions of how Kelly quit and one involved a gun, so I wanted to check on the real story," Amy said.

Jonah said, "There was no gun. Her ex-husband showed up, actually, when we went back to her place after. After we were doing announcements. So I had to call an Uber to go home. And then she called me the next morning and told me her great news. So none of it was new to me. And then you wanted to tell me all about last year, and then, honestly, I went out with Marcus so I'm clearly spiraling out of control."

"Marcus? Who thinks you can call dibs on people?" 

Jonah said, "I told him you can't. I yelled it at him. He clearly didn't listen. But we went out drinking anyway. And then I drag myself into work today and Kelly comes in to quit and I pretty much just gave up on today. Maybe this whole week."

"So where did the part about real love come into it?"

Jonah sighed. "She was explaining it to Glenn, it wasn't addressed to me. It was sort of addressed to me, but honestly, we're never said I love you to each other or anything like that."

"I don't get the part where she wasn't divorced?"

Jonah sighed again. "This is fun to talk about. Um, they separated and filed for it, but her ex joined the army for a two year stint so they never really pursued the rest. You know Kelly. She could be pretty flighty."

"I'm sorry about your week," Amy said. "I just had mediocre sex. And slut shamed by the whole store. And someone uploaded it to youtube and Emma saw it. But Dina took care of that. The video."

"Thank God," Jonah said. "Poor Emma. Is she okay?"

"I guess? She's had a rough year, too," Amy said. "Though it feels like everything is all happening this week, huh?"

"Yeah, it's always been all happening at once, though," Jonah said.

"I don't know if that's deep or just nonsense," Amy said. She laughed. "Can I call it nonsense without adding to your pain?"

"No," he said. But he laughed, too. "Maybe if I said it in my Meryl Streep voice."

"Do you have a Meryl Streep voice? Judging by your Al Pacino and and your Robert DeNiro, I don't think it's good."

"My Al Pacino is great," Jonah said. "Isn't it?"

"Oh, of course," she said. "It's not great. You're no Rich Little."

"Who remembers Rich Little?"

"My dad," Amy said. 

They kept talking for an hour.


End file.
